The first two games of Round 14 showed that the season is far from over, that and there would be few easy games and that we shouldn’t book our finals tickets yet!
The Thursday night opener in Perth saw Essendon play exciting football that West Coast, missing two of their champion forwards, could not match. Not one of the nine Essendon goal-scorers appear in the club’s list of top 100 goal-scorers of all time, but it should be noted that the two multiple goal-scorers were both older age recruits from other clubs: Jake Stringer (ex-Bulldog, three goals) and Devon Smith (ex-Greater Western Sydney, 3 goals).
With the absence of the injured David Zaharakis, only three players from the club’s top 100 game-players played in the match, and all improved their position on the list. Carl Hooker drew level with Les Gardiner, a dependable back pocket who missed all of 1944 with a back injury after debuting in 1943. He played in three premierships for the Bombers in the glory years for the club but never kicked a goal.
Michael Hurley past the games totals for the club of John Cassin and Angus Monfries and drew level with ‘Rugged’ Ron Andrews, who was regarded as the enforcer in the team during his career with the club from 1973 to 1983. During that time he missed 24 games through suspension and many more through injury. Dyson Heppell passed Rowley Watt and Elton Plummer and joined five other players in equal 81st position.
Four of the West Coast Eagles’s top 100 goal-scorers were among the goals but none moved any higher up the list. Amongst the club’s top-100 game-players, ironically Mark LeCras equalled John Worsfold, who has been involved in every Eagles premiership as either captain or coach. Also on the same number of games and inside the club’s top 20 is former champion forward Quenton Lynch. Andrew Gaff notched up the number of games played by current Gold Coast player Matt Rosa.
The game also saw Brendon Goddard play his 325th AFL game and draw level with Jason Akermanis, who started his career with two years at the Brisbane Bears and then played the bulk of his career at the Brisbane Lions before finishing with four years at the Western Bulldogs. Ian Nankervis (Geelong) and Jude Bolton (Sydney) also played 325 games and all four sit just inside the AFL top-30 game-players.
(AAP Image/David Moir)
The Friday night game proved to be a titanic struggle between two top-eight teams. Port Adelaide recorded the same number of shots for goal as Melbourne but kicked just a bit straighter and finished up winning by ten points.
Apart from being a very meritorious win, the game also provided personal highlights for two of the club’s top-ten game-players. Justin Westoff, after climbing to third place on the goal-kicker list last week, equalled the exploits of the club’s fourth-greatest game player (Chad Cornes) and Travis Boak this week and drew level with sixth on the list, Brendan Lade. Brad Ebert played his 150th AFL game, which included 76 games at the West Coast Eagles.
For Melbourne, Nathan Jones passed James McDonald and is now equal with former champion Brian Dixon at seventh on the Demons’ all-time game-players list, while Tom McDonald passed five players and equalled three more in the lower level of top-100 champions. Sadly this includes two of the original 1897 players.
Recent entrant into the club’s top 100, Neville Jetta, drew level with Charlie Young, who played in the club’s first-ever game and was a member of the 1900 premiership side.
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